Thursday, January 21, 2010

It is a good thing the weekend is almost here; Spot doesn’t know how much more good news he can take this week.

First, there was the election of a Republican in the special election for the seat held by Ted Kennedy since 1962.

Second was the announcement by President Obama that he would yet again negotiate with himself over health care reform. (Small consolation: Nancy Pelosi says the Senate bill is a no go in the House.) [but see the comments to the previous post]

Third, and in what could be the biggest blow to a functioning democracy: the ruling by the Supreme Court that dollars have First Amendment rights. The ruling was, as so many are today, made by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Justice John Paul Stevens argued against rule by a mob of dollars:

Justice John Paul Stevens read a long dissent from the bench. He said the majority had committed a grave error in treating corporate speech the same as that of human beings. His decision was joined by the other three members of the court’s liberal wing.

The corporatists, who were known as fascists in Italy in the 30s, have won. And they didn’t even have to call out the Guard to do it.

Update: And Thursday was capped, after this post was written, by the fact that Air America had slipped the surly bonds of earth and would be going off the air. (This doesn’t appear to affect KTNF that much, however, since there is little Air America programming on KTNF.)